The Saddle, back in it I get
I have to admit that I’ve always been an on-again, off-again blogger. I’ll go through these periods where I post incessantly, and then a few months later forget that I even had a blog and ignore it for long periods of time. Even back in my glory days of blogging where my livejournal was ablaze with depressing emo posts about how few friends I had and how much I wished that I had a girlfriend I couldn’t keep it going at a steady pace. This point was emphasized when I ran across my old livejournal in an attempt to archive my youth and I read over some of those old posts. Wow. Terrifying. I will say that back in those days I was certainly blogging a lot more, so with any luck I’ll be able to work back to that. Blogging - like almost any activity - requires the direct application of muscle (in this case, the creative writing centers in my brain), and mine are currently atrophied. I’ll have to put together some kind of workout routine. As Chris always says “Every day, something. Even if it’s small, something every day.” Of course, I’ve never actually known him to say that - at least not outside of that blog post - but that doesn’t make it any less true.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want from my life. Some of it has been driven by the same nagging self doubt regarding my potential as a Physicist that drove me to stop blogging in the first place a month or two ago. When I got my GRE scores back for my Physics section I was stunned, the results were about a hundred and fifty points lower than I expected. What’s worse is that those expectations weren’t inflated due to some misplaced concerns for my ego, I had been taking practice exam after practice exam and repeatedly scored between 740 and 780 on them. Three unique full length exams taken the week before the real deal all landed in that range, yet somehow I still managed to end up with a 610. In the end, I suppose a combination of bad luck, nerves and an overactive bladder all conspired together to ruin that test, but needless to say it did a number of my confidence.
Over the past few weeks though, those concerns have diminished. I’ve filled out five applications to PhD programs thus far, and I’ve realized that those GRE score really are the only bad mark on my record. Even then, while they’re no means good, they’re not as bad as they could have been either. So onwards I go, back to the thinking about my life that I’ve been doing. What I’ve decided after these extensive periods of self-reflection (which I guess are important when you’re trying to sell yourself to grad school without actually lying) is that in order to prepare myself for the next stage of my life I need to start doing things differently. Over the past two years my motivation and drive has improved by leaps an bounds, I’ve gotten to a point where my work is done, and it’s done well. When I start a project I can generally finish it, but with certain things like this website and my secret project, I just haven’t been able to get them to a point where they’re moving along steadily. Maybe that’s a personal failing, perhaps I’m stuck living in a life that will be full of periods of productivity in an otherwise unproductive work cycle. I don’t think so though, so I’m going to make an effort to start changing that.
Enter this post, one of the many “recent” posts that have been little more than self-affirmation and a promise to do more with this site. Wish me luck interwebs, if this is going to work, I’m going to need all the luck I can get.
As I walked through the mall, waiting any way but patiently for my haircut I came across a rather disturbing sight. There, right in the center, nestled snugly in between JC Penny and Pac Sun sat a gigantic north pole mockup, complete with wreathes, Christmas trees, and a big green chair. The only thing that was missing was good old St. Nick. Of course that’s because even Santa Claus realizes that it’s too early for Christmas.